5 .sx Bachelor Girl .sx FOR ALL MAJOR RONALD FERGUSON'S INSISTENCE THAT HIS younger daughter should get a job and earn her own way , work or , more precisely , a career was not yet at the top of Sarah's agenda .sx She was young and there were good times to be had .sx She had enjoyed working for Durden-Smith Communications - and with a boss who flies you to Paris for a party on your first day , who wouldn't ?sx But she was also going to enjoy her travels through the New World .sx It was , she recalls , one of the most exciting periods of her life .sx She kept a daily chronicle of her youthful adventures .sx She still has the diary tied with a blue ribbon in her apartment in Buckingham Palace .sx Charlotte and Sarah set off in the autumn of 1980 .sx The first entry , written in her neat , rounded hand in a vivid green ink , is dated shortly after her twenty-first birthday .sx There were good - byes to be said first , of course , and the girls' departure from Durden-Smith Communications was an excuse ( not that Neil ever needed one ) for a farewell party with champagne toasts .sx In celebration of her birthday her father gave her a cocktail party for one hundred and fifty guests in the Crystal Room of the Berkeley Hotel in London .sx She had declined his offer of a dance at Dummer , saying that she would rather have the money for the trip ; and a couple of weeks later they were on their way .sx They were met , as Sarah was on her first trip to Argentina , at Buenos Aires airport by Hector and Susie and they drove straight to the Barrantes' new 4000-acre ranch .sx Hector drove fast along the two-lane highway , his foot hard to the floor with only the occasional deceleration for a wandering cow or when they passed through one of the small towns that dot the pampas .sx Four hours and four hundred miles later they turned through the wooden gates at El Pucara ( it means Fortress in Spanish) .sx The only contact with the outside world was by crackling radio telephone and the nearest town , Tres Lomas , was twenty miles away .sx Hector had converted a hundred acres of this flat land into a polo field and exercise area for his ponies and surrounded it with hundreds of saplings to protect it from the winds .sx The house was set back a mile from the road at the end of a drive lined with willow and cactus and spruce trees .sx Almost anything will grow on this abundant , seemingly inexhaustible plain where the twelve foot deep top soil is so fertile that it is cheaper to buy more land than fertilize what you already own and the gauchos slaughter a cow just to eat its tongue .sx Sarah and Charlotte rode the humid prairie , worried about the mosquitoes , and helped Susie move into her new A-framed home .sx Sarah learned the rudiments of Spanish in its gruff Argentine version .sx And there were the ponies to admire .sx Hector Barrantes had started with little .sx He was now on his way to becoming probably the best breeder of polo ponies in Argentina .sx And Argentinian polo ponies are the best in the world , commanding prices of up to pounds30,000 an animal .sx Introduced by the British in 1876 , the sport ranks second only to soccer in the Argentine sporting calendar and as many as 40,000 people attend the Argentine Open in Buenos Aires .sx Barrantes' 'valiente' ponies were almost invariably part of the winning team .sx The secret , Hector explained , is patience .sx The ponies ( a misnomer :sx a pony is a horse under 14.2 hands , while the average height of polo 'ponies' is 15.1 hands ) are not confined to stables but are turned out year round .sx They play every day for six hours and in between are schooled by the 'domadors' , the ranch hands who do the breaking-in .sx It is a long process .sx While other breeders often sell their ponies at the age of four or five , Barrantes kept his - and at the last count he had three hundred and fifty horses including a breeding stock of sixty-two mares and seven stallions - until they were six or even seven .sx " I'm in no hurry , " he said .sx The girls were .sx After a Christmas celebrated in the traditional English manner ( even in the heart of the pampas Susie maintained the homely English tradition of three meals a day , fresh flowers and pretty curtains ) , they set off by rackety bus to drive to Iguaza Falls to see the most magnificent waterfalls in South America and then north to Rio de Janeiro .sx Using the South American Handbook for reference , they stayed at cheap but comparatively safe lodgings on the overnight stops en route .sx By the time they got to the Falls , however , on the borders of Argentina , Paraguay and Brazil , " we had run out of money , " as Charlotte recalls , " so we slept in the bus station on the benches , surrounded by throngs of peasant women with their children and chickens .sx " .sx They had their onward bus and airline tickets , but they did not have enough cruzeiros left to buy even a corn on the cob from one of the maize sellers .sx Resorting to their wits , they took advantage of the South American habit of providing small pieces of cheese and olives with every drink .sx They walked into the nearby hotel , " trying to look as prosperous as possible " , as Charlotte says , asked for two glasses of water , " scoffed " the modest tapas and then ran off to catch the bus .sx It had been an exciting adventure in a continent where single women are looked on as easy prey .sx The murder of tourists was common enough to warrant a warning in the South American Handbook , as do the travellers' more commonplace hazards of pick-pockets , false arrest , beggars and robbery .sx " I wouldn't do it today but it was great fun then , " Charlotte says .sx They survived and after staying with friends of Major Ferguson in Rio , they flew on to the United States and headed for the ski resorts of the Rocky Mountains .sx Says Mrs Barrantes :sx " I had a great friend in Squaw Valley so Sarah and Charlotte went to stay there and work for a while , " lookking after children , waiting on table in a cafeteria , cleaning the immaculate 'log cabin' chalets and skiing the crisp , dry , easily negotiated high altitude snow in between times .sx Then it was back across the continent to meet up with Hector and Susie in Palm Springs .sx They finished up in Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico .sx After the corrugated , rutted shambles of Latin America , and the clean - limbed freshness of the mountains , the musky neon nights of America's jazz city were overpowering .sx " The most worrying time was walking around the back streets of New Orleans .sx We definitely thought we would end up being mugged , " Charlotte says .sx That summer back in England they regaled their friends and family with the edited highlights of their trip .sx They had been away for almost six months .sx In their absence Susan Ferguson had given birth to another child , a daughter called Alice , who was born while Sarah was in Argentina .sx She telephoned her with the news and asked her to be a godmother .sx Babies do not particularly excite Sarah .sx She prefers them from a year upwards .sx But she did find her little half-sister with her dusting of blonde hair " terribly sweet " and spent a while helping her stepmother around the house at Dummer .sx With her funds now all but exhausted there was no chance to linger , however .sx A job and a flat had to be found and a faltering romance - she was still involved with Kim Smith-Bingham - continued .sx The accommodation part of that common equation was easily resolved .sx Back on the London social circuit she encountered Carolyn Beckwith-Smith whose mother was an old friend of Susie Barrantes .sx " We met at a cocktail party and I happened to mention that if she was ever looking for somewhere to live she should give me a call , " Carolyn recalls .sx " Amazingly she said , 'How about now ?sx ' and she practically moved in then and there .sx " .sx A very attractive blonde , Carolyn had her own home in Lavender Gardens , a street of terraced houses in Clapham .sx Only ten years before , the area had been a respectable but decidedly working-class suburb on what had been scathingly called 'the wrong side of the river' .sx Soaring property prices , however , had driven the younger generation of Sloanes out of their traditional territory and there had been a mass migration across the bridges from Belgravia and Chelsea into the hitherto uncharted regions south of the Thames .sx With them came the bistros and flower shops , design centres , fabric shops , picture framers , and other such services deemed essential for civilized living and by the time Sarah moved in , Clapham was secure as a forward post of urban respectability .sx The flatmates got on well together .sx Carolyn has a sense of humour to rival Sarah's - it is said she once put sneezing powder in her stepfather's omelette .sx Artistic and Bohemian , she had worked for interior decorator Nina Campbell , managed Edina Ronay's clothes shop in Liberty's in Regent Street , and was a close friend of dress designer Lindka Cierach .sx All would figure prominently in Sarah's future .sx At the time she was working as a make-up artist and used to show Sarah different ways of doing her hair and making up her eyes .sx Carolyn continues :sx " Fergie was very tidy , immaculate in fact .sx She wasn't a great Hooverer or ironer but everything in her room was always very tidy .sx She can't stand a mess .sx " They employed an Indian cleaning lady to do the dusting and polishing and the sitting room was always full of fresh flowers - freesias and roses were Sarah's favourites - and the walls were hung with oil paintings .sx " We didn't entertain much , we didn't have time , " Carolyn remembers .sx Both were living active social lives , " and it was a question of who was last in and was it too late to wake the other up .sx If we had a bad time we would cheer each other up .sx " .sx Her domestic arrangements settled , Sarah now had to get down to the more substantial task of finding herself a job ; she answered an advertisement in The Times for a personal assistant cum secretary to William Drummond , an art dealer with premises in Covent Garden .sx Drummond - lanky , sandy-haired , chain smoking , always moving , and possessed of an engagingly droll wit - recalls his first meeting with Sarah .sx " When she arrived I told her I couldn't even see her as I had such a terrible hangover .sx You can imagine all that mass of red hair when you are hung over .sx It was rather like having to look straight into the sun .sx " .sx He knew nothing about her and she was just one of thirty applicants , jobs in art galleries being very sought after by young girls from Sarah's background .sx A couple of days later , while wandering through Covent Garden , Drummond encountered a colleague in the art business who told him how fortunate he was to have Sarah Ferguson joining him .sx He was slightly taken aback as he had still not made up his mind which of the thirty he was going to hire .sx That chance remark decided him .sx " I thought , 'That's the right spirit' , and made up my mind immediately , " he says .sx For Drummond , an expert in rather obscure eighteenth-century oil paintings and drawings , a prerequisite of the employment of a secretary was that she did not know too much about his speciality .sx " That allows you to get on with playing with your pictures while they do all the nasty things , " he explains .sx For Sarah part of the job included taking Drummond in hand .sx She made him morning coffee .sx She tried to feed him up ; because he was too engrossed in his work to bother to organize his own lunches she would fetch him sandwiches from Maxwell's , the snack bar across the road ( " She was a handsome eater herself - when she wasn't starving herself , " he says) .sx She tried to make him cut down on his smoking .sx